Nick Barlow's blog

About a year ago, I wrote a post about how Councils were having to choose between two new structures for organising themselves, both of which required a huge concentration of power into the hands of one individual – either a ‘strong leader’ or an elected Mayor.

However, after the General Election and with the Labour Government being replaced with the Coalition, it looked like this would be something that would quickly fall by the wayside, especially with the statement in the Programme for Government which stated that while the twelve largest cities would have the opportunity to decide on whether they wanted elected mayors, for other Councils there was this:

We will give councils a general power of competence
…
We will allow councils to return to the committee system, should they wish to.

So, no need to carry on with the old process and a chance for Councils to determine for themselves what the best way of running their affairs would be. Sounds great, until someone realised that they hadn’t got rid of the old legislation requiring Councils to go through the changes, and so that would stay in place until the Localism Bill finally made its way through Parliament. Yes, we have to change systems in 2011, and then change them again in 2012, no doubt all in the name of efficiency.

But that’s not what I really want to write about today. As the local press have reported, we’re now in the process of deciding which of the two options we want (pdf file) – strong leader or elected mayor. While I still remain somewhat ambivalent about the choice being offered in themselves – it’s somewhat akin to being asked whether you want to be thrown out of a plane or out of a helicopter – I think that the elected Mayor option should be strongly opposed and rejected.

This isn’t because I’ve become a fervent supporter of the strong leader system, but because that option is the one that’s easiest to amend in the future when we have the power to do so. I’m opposed to systems where power is concentrated in individuals and I think the best Council structure would be one where power is dispersed back to committees, area panels and the like rather than concentrated upwards. It’s much easier to switch to something entirely new from the strong leader situation than it would be if we had an elected Mayor in place – you’re more likely to get a leader who’ll give up their powers than a Mayor who’ll happily abolish their entire existence.

Of course, that’s at the heart of my opposition to elected Mayors – this idea that concentrating all the power of the Council into one person is somehow a good thing and will solve all problems. (It’s also very similar to the arguments Mussolini and the Fascists used in the 1920s and have been used by anti-democrats ever since – democracy and consensus have failed, only a strongman leader can solve these problems) No matter what living in an elected dictatorship might have taught us, democracy isn’t just about voting every once in a while and then forgetting about it. It’s a system of checks and balances that should be there to prevent, not encourage, the exercise of arbitrary power by anyone. The way the Mayoral system is established in Britain doesn’t allow for this – the Council is reduced to little more than a rubber stamp (just look at how little power the GLA has to check the Mayor of London) and huge chunks of what the Council does can be determined solely by Mayoral fiat.

‘But that’s what we want!’ Some people say. ‘Let the Mayor smash through red tape, bureaucracy, political correctness, council jobsworths and whatever other nonsense the Daily Mail says is blighting the country!’ What they fail to realise they’re assuming in this is that they’ll get a Mayor who agrees with them. I know we all like to assume that the majority agree with us, no matter how silent they might be when asked, but just imagine what someone you fundamentally disagree with could do with that unchecked power over your Borough. Concentrating power into a single post might increase the reward for winning an election, but there’s always that matching risk someone you don’t like will get all that power – all it takes is one good election campaign, one last minute scandal as people go to vote, one slip up in an interview or at a hustings and suddenly someone you never wanted running your life has a huge say over it.

I’m not claiming that the alternatives are perfect political systems for local government, but they do have the advantage of diffusing power, of ensuring everyone has the chance to have their say, not just the coterie who get to surround the winning Mayoral candidate, and there’s a recognition that individuals are fallible. Checks and balances may not lead to the supposedly dynamic and efficient government that seems to be perennially just one reform away from us, but they do keep the arbitrary abuse of power away.

What a monument of human smallness is this idea of the philosopher king. What a contrast between it and the simplicity of humaneness of Socrates, who warned the statesmen against the danger of being dazzled by his own power, excellence, and wisdom, and who tried to teach him what matters most — that we are all frail human beings.

Just a quick reminder for those of you in Colchester that tomorrow we have our first public meetings as part of the waste consultation – 12-2pm and 5-7pm in the Moot Hall. We are planning to video some of it and make it available on the web for people who can’t there to see.

And if you haven’t already, you’ve still got until the end of January to respond to the consultation – see the latest edition of the Courier, or fill out the survey online.

After quite a few months of work through the Task and Finish Group that I chair, I’m pleased to say that our waste and recyling consultation is now live on Colchester Council’s website. It will also be in the next edition of the Courier, which should be landing on doorsteps throughout the Borough in the next week.

If you live in Colchester, then please take a few minutes to let us know your views about waste and recycling, and what we should be doing about them. I know people are cynical about council and government consultations, but I can promise you that this is an open consultation, and we want to know what the people of Colchester think about waste and recycling so we can create a system that’s tailored to your needs, rather than coming up with a system and then attempting to make the people fit into it.

The consultation is ongoing until the middle of January, and there’s also a public event scheduled for December 1st in the Moot Hall, where you can find out more. We’re also in the process of organising meetings with the Borough’s town and parish councils to ensure we get a wide selection of views, so look out for details of that happening in your area.

Seeing it in the paper today reminded me that I should mention the consultation that’s currently going on regarding the plans for restoration and development of Castle Park. There are lots of ideas for what we can do with the park, but as the Heritage Lottery Fund decided it was too nice already to need a grant from them, we can’t afford all of them. So, you can now read the various plans and ideas and fill in the questionnaire to help the Council decide what should be the priorities for the money we do have to spend on the park.

You can also take part in the consultation at Angel Court, the Visitor Information Centre and the cafe in Castle Park. There’ll also be information and discussion sessions in the Park (on Hollytrees Lawn) on the afternoons of Saturday 29th August and Saturday 12th September. Having typed that last sentence, I realise that means those afternoons have now most likely been doomed to experience heavy rain. Sorry.

Related Posts

Had a Policy Review and Development Panel meeting tonight, which is a Council committee I quite like being on as it tends to achieve things – even if they are small – and the meetings don’t drag on for hours. More information on everything we discussed here, if you’re interested, including our rather lengthy Tree Policy. Yes, you are allowed to question how many trees were sacrificed to print copies of the policy.

But, the most important thing coming out of there is that it looks as though November will be a busy month, especially for me, as not only is the waste consultation – and I might write a long blog post about that sometime- now scheduled to happen then, but we should also be having another consultation about town centre developments, including the whole question of St Botolph’s and the bus station. Should be interesting, just a question of making sure we have proper consultations, not the usual ‘Do you agree with all our suggestions? Yes/Hell Yes’ type of one, or the Essex County Council-style one, where you consult, get 4,000 responses that disagree with you and then ignore them in favour of the ‘silent majority’.

This weblog is purely a personal site and unless explicity stated otherwise any opinions stated are purely personal and do not represent those of Colchester Liberal Democrats, Castle Ward Liberal Democrats or Colchester Borough Council.